Jacyk was born into a peasant family in the small rural village of Verkhnie Synyovydne, then part of Poland.

[1] In 1944 Jacyk left Ukraine as a refugee and settled in St. Pölten (Austria), then in 1945 he headed to Regensburg (Germany) and from there immigrated to Canada as a displaced person in 1949.

The Prombank Group of Companies survives him into the second generation.“Through most of his adult life, Peter Jacyk celebrated two separate but linked qualities: his Ukrainian roots and his Canadian identity.

[1] In 1979, Jacyk headed the fundraising committee for the multivolume Ukrainian-language Encyclopedia of Ukraine (Entsyklopediia ukraïnoznavstva) being published by the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Sarcelles, France.

In 1986 he established the Petro Jacyk Education Foundation, whose goal is to support educational programs and academic centers in world renowned universities devoted to the scholarly interpretation and dissemination of objective information about Ukraine and Ukrainians as well as sponsoring other initiatives which contribute to the promotion of international awareness of Ukraine and its people.